Tuesday, July 30, 2013

From the Empirical Archives: The Loss of Many, The Loss of One by By Peggy Aylsworth

The Loss of Many, The Loss of One
Peggy Aylsworth
Originally published in the January 2013 issue of Empirical



It’s August. The sea lies still.
The air grows thick and heavy.
What’s new
is old.
Young soldiers reverse artillery.
“Tough” is the word that drowns
in sorry
blood,
pushed to a pressure without a human
name. The spirit flogged to this:
obey,
prepare
for the kill, to face another face,
shatter its grace, less worthy, as
the story
goes.
Is this his brother, created equal,
condemned for the crime of other?
A bullet
to the head,
his own, crosses the divide to choice.
The land grows empty as lightning strikes.



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